This Is How You’ll Miss Me

I've been around so often you’ve taken it for granted. You think no matter what you say or do, I’ll be there because I have always  been.

The average person wouldn’t have tolerated any of this for as long as I did. But the thing is, I'm different. My strength comes in the form of believing when there’s no hope to be had. My strength comes in the form of staying when everyone tells me I should go.

My strength comes in the form of looking you in the eyes and smiling when you’re the very same reason I cried myself to sleep last night.

But ultimately, this heart will get tired of waiting. Get tired of accepting what I don't deserve.

I’ll start to pull away, gradually. And in the beginning, you won’t notice. How can you notice anyone or anything you never truly appreciated before? You’ll learn to appreciate me in my absence. And that’s the hardest way to miss someone. That moment will click, you could have had something great but you didn’t know what you had when you had it.

I was always yours to have. I never played games. I made it too easy. But the thing about me is I don't think love should be as difficult as you made it. I don’t believe in games or messing with someone’s feelings because they were unsure of their own. But that’s exactly what you did.

And after a while, even the strongest girls get tired of waiting. Emotionally exhausted. And that strength I had suddenly gets channeled into leaving.

Trust me I don’t want to leave, ever. If it were my choice and I knew with confidence waiting would lead to what I ultimately wanted, I’d stick it out. But with you, there is a wave of uncertainty that makes me question myself.

Suddenly someone who was confident became doubtful while looking at their reflection. I built you up at the cost of tearing myself down because you’ve led me to believe it’s me, that’s not good enough.

That's why I'm leaving even though I don’t want to, even though every step I take away from you, feels like killing a part of myself.

And I’ll keep looking back. I'll keep looking for every reason to turn around. But what kills me isn’t leaving, it’s that you’re not going to notice for a while how far gone I've been.

And slowly you’ll see I'm no longer there. I'm no longer available every time you need me. My replies to your texts will get slower and slower and less enthusiastic.  Me starting conversations looking for any reason to talk to you will be replaced with silence. Then one day you’ll realize.

Maybe you’ll send a snap that gets opened with no response when in the past I used to wait 30 seconds to answer. Maybe you’ll text me and that span of time I don’t answer will give you a taste of your own medicine and you’ll know how I felt for so long. Maybe you’ll double text even though you know you shouldn’t. Maybe you'll call but it'll go directly into voicemail. You'll wait for days for me to call you back, but that call never comes.

The moment you realize you might have lost me, you’ll realize how everything reminds you of me.

Suddenly you’ll be the one looking for reasons to talk to me. Something good happens and you want to tell me. Something bad happens and you miss that shoulder you used to cry on. Days turn into weeks and you realize how little I come around. And you wonder when you’re going to see me again. You realize how much you look forward to that day and how much you missed me.

Everything you used to think was annoying, you'll realize was just my way of showing you how much I cared even though you did little to reciprocate it.

It’ll be in that moment you realize how strong I was for loving someone who couldn’t love me back the way I deserved.

And you'd want to reach out. But there’s an apprehension because you know what you did. Or rather what you didn’t.

And you’ll fumble through this realization of how much you do care and you want to tell me.  You don’t realize how many conversations I wanted to have with you. 

When every plan got canceled and your word became something I couldn’t rely on,  what I  learned was, you might have been everything I wanted but you were also the last thing I needed.

Because if love is this pain I felt, this disappointment you’ve left me with, then maybe it’s me that got it wrong.

So I’ll go not because I don’t love you but because you never asked me to stay and it took you a long time to even realize I was gone.

And the day will come and we’ll cross paths, maybe I'm holding the hand of someone who isn’t you.

And that’s when it’ll hit you the hardest.

Watching me love someone else the way I loved you, will crush you.

What you don’t know is how hard something new was for me. I compared everyone to you in the beginning.

And we’ll look at each other across the room and in that silence, you’ll see I  never stopped loving you and maybe you'll realize you love me too. But neither of us will make the slightest of a move. Just this eye contact without words and if a silence could speak what should have been said, we both know, it wasn’t supposed to end this way.

And you'll find yourself hoping that in the next lifetime, we'll meet again. Promising the Universe that you'll love me the way you should have loved me a long time ago.

Before I left.

Before I'm gone.

Before I became something that you didn't think you'll ever miss.